Christopher Haywood Poet Narrative

Notes About The Poem

In this expression I tie the internal life of the tree to my own internal life's journey.

The Sentinel’s Skin

Between the furrows, deep and wide,
I press my weight against the hide
Of this old giant, rough and grey,
To climb beyond the reach of day.

I am a ghost within the grain,
Escaping wind and driving rain,
Into a world where shadows creep
And silent, wooden secrets sleep.

I find a limb of hollow white,
A stick of wood that lost its light.
It snaps beneath a heavy hand,
A ghost-branch in a living land.

I feel the ache of beauty shed,
The quiet wisdom of the dead;
Yet higher still, the pulse returns
Where life within the xylem yearns.

Then comes the scar, a craggy line,
Where lightning drank the sap like wine.
The sky once tore this heart in two,
A blackened wound where fire flew;

I touch the charcoal, hard and cold,
The trauma of a story told,
Yet see the bark has fused the breach—
A lesson only storms can teach.

The hidden neighbors scuttle by:
A beetle with a jeweled eye,
An ant in copper armor dressed,
A mite upon a crimson quest.

Then—drumming!—a hammer hits the wall,
The woodpecker’s insistent call
Vibrates through my shuddering core, 
A rhythmic, hollow, wooden roar.

I press my ear against the wood
To hear the stretching in the dark—
The hiss of water, upward bound, 
A deep and cellular, groaning sound.

The trunk begins to heave and sway, 
A cello note in oil and brae, 
As massive fibers stretch and sigh 
Beneath the pressure of the sky.

I burst at last through leaves of gold,
The narrow canyons lose their hold.
The world is vast, the world is wide,
With nothing left for me to hide.

Through greens and yellows, I see the light,
The rolling hills, the river's flight—
The timber’s skin was but a door;
The marrow’s song and so much more.

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